Thursday, July 24, 2014

and knowing DS needed a few thank you notes after receiving birthday gifts, and seeing the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Emboss it! and remembering this set of tags I made a while ago... Ta da!

Made four of these mini cards from one A4 sheet of white CS. Heat embossed the lines white, then watercolored a few random squares. Added an initial to one square and a piece of washi to another, then topped with a sentiment.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Happy first anniversary to Curtain Call! Do you play over there? They always have the most beautiful inspiration photos and great design work from the team. And this time the theme is Anything Goes AND there are lots of prizes to celebrate. I'm in :)

How can you not love all that white space? (How can you not love all that storage space? I'll keep dreamin') I picked up on the touches of pink and made a card of encouragement.

Stamped trees onto panel of CS using Distress Inks spritzed with water. Stamped sentiments. Die cut ampersand from cereal box and used it to dry emboss the panel. Highlighted ampersand with Wink of Stella for a bit of glimmer. Punched a hole and threaded the ribbon. Made a pocket of vellum by stitching it to the card. Even added a bit of PP to the inside a la Kelly G.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Howdy. Here's a CAS one layer card I created basically using one just one STAMPlorations stamp - the chevron-y arrow in the middle!

Started with a cream cardbase. Stamped with light blue first. Then I partially inked (covered the rest of the stamp with the corner of a piece of scrap paper cuz it nestles so nicely into the design) and stamped with Versamark and heat embossed. Then at the end of each I stamped one black triangle (partially inked the bottom stamp in the set pictured above). Also used the arrow stamp to make the red element in the corner. Isn't it cool how just one half of the stamp has a totally different look! Love that about chevrons. Added a Dymo sentiment trimmed to an arrow too.

Here's a closeup of the white embossing.

I'm so excited that this card was chosen for the August 2014 issue of Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking.

Monday, July 14, 2014

Wow, what a whirlwind the past few days have been. Piggy-backed submission calls . A week of STAMPlorations exploration. And did ya see who won the World Cup?! Woooohooooo! I think I have to sleep for about a week to make up for time spent in front of the TV when I should have been sleeping over the past month.

And wasn't it spiffy of FIFA to schedule the final game for the eve of DS's 18th birthday? And then for his "boss" at his work experience to give him his birthday off? Can you say non-stop party?! And he's now legal for hard alcohol. And he can now drive the car alone. Which he's doing as we speak - picking up his license. Oh my nerves!

The birthday boy/girl always gets balloons and streamers over our dining table, but I had another idea for DS this year. This is the tree on our front lawn. Theme: drinking. And driving. But not together of course.

So the invitations for our "161" party are all out and of course I needed a few more. Seven to be exact. But may I confess I was plum-tuckered out on the invites project. So I hit all my leftovers laying around my workspace and literally whipped 'em out. Absolutely nothing to write home about here, but I'm so happy I used up some schtuff! Here's a twofer.

So last but definitely not least... a winner!

There were 18 commenters on the last post of my Exploration STAMPlorations series. I of course asked the birthday boy to pick a number between 1 and 18. Need I say which number he picked?!?! Lucky commenter #18 ...

Before you go... how about a giveaway? Sweet Shery R. is letting me give away one of the stamp sets from the latest release. Wonky cakes? Sentiment builders? Tell me which set tickles your fancy. I'll choose a random winner from all the comments left on this post by midnight EST Sunday, July 13.

Hope I've inspired you. I certainly appreciate you coming by. Have a great weekend (and don't forget to watch soccer on Sunday :)

Created two masks of the gift, placed them on the CS and stamped the sentiment randomly. When dry, I heat embossed the gifts and then inked them with rainbow colors. Put the masks back on and splattered with black Heidi Swapp spray ink. Rounded two corners and I was done.

I'm lovin' these sketchy stamps for artsy techniques like distress inking or watercoloring. More rainbow action coming your way tomorrow... And rumor has it there might be a giveaway ;)

Those great crepe paper balls. Those colors! How 'bout a birthday bash with cupcakes? And sequins.

Take a cupcake stamp. Take some Simon Says Stamp Sea Glass CS (NBUS - love this color) and some pink and yellow alcohol inks on acetate. Add lotsa sequins and confetti. Add an HB2U (from the VIGNETTE: It's Your Day set) cuz I happened to have it handy and happened to somehow get smidgens of black ink all over the front of this card after I was done with it - UGH. Thus the escaped sequins on the outside too. But it was just what the card needed since the sentiment in Sea Glass along the bottom gets a little lost.

This is the first shaker card I'm actually thrilled about. Amy T. has a good approach to shakers - use glassine bags. But on normal shaker cards I've had an issue with sequins getting stuck on the exposed edges of the foam adhesive behind the acetate. You too?TIP: Die cut two layers of craft foam (on this card I cut two pink square frames (gotta get me some white craft foam) and stacked them)) and use them in place of foam adhesive. No sticky edges for the sequins to stick to!

I also stamped the cupcake in yellow onto the white shaker backing, a tiny bit offset from the black stamped image. You can see it if you look closely. The depth achieved by the height of the doubled craft foam is phenomenal. TIP: Glue two or three sequins onto the shaker backing so the shaker window looks filled even when standing.
Tomorrow I'm casing one of the sweetest CAS cardmakers out there. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

and playing along at CASE Study #198 where the muse is none other than the amazing Shari Carroll with this beauty that speaks to my graphic-loving heart!

This is what I did.

I CASEd myself on this one too, but definitely went all girlie this time. I love playing with the wonky cake and inking it up two tone.

I got an "office supply" vibe from Shari's card. I used a layer of vellum with a circle die cut from Amy Tangerine's Plus One paper pack on top and a little tab from another die cut circle tucked underneath. I stamped "big day" from the sentiment builders set on the tab. Figured I could handwrite the recipient's birthdate to personalize the card even more. Cool, eh?

(This photo looks like it needs to go into the washing machine to get rid of the grime - UGH - it's actually a nice cream colored CS)

Heat embossed the images and partially watercolored them. Some pink splatters and Wink of Stella shimmer to the swirls on the frosting and voila! It's "12 candles for you".

You could also fussy cut the cake and pop it up like Monika did here. And I'm thinking it would look pretty cute paper pieced on tiny polka dot PP too.

Come back and visit tomorrow when it'll be about shaking your cupcake. And if you participated in the birthday blog hop the winners have been announced here. If you didn't win, there's a great deal in the shop until July 11 - all six sets for $30. TTFN.

Monday, July 7, 2014

There's a new sketch up at STAMPlorations and this is what it looks like.

I tweaked it slightly cuz inspired by this, I wanted to create a wrapped present. I stamped some tissue paper with the strip from VIGNETTE: Grunge Floral Strips and die cut the bow from it. I adhered it to a die cut square that I stamped with a brush stroke from Holiday Artsy. The sentiment is from PTI. Ta da!

There are plenty of variations on this sketch over at the STAMPlorations blog, including a pretty one from our guest designer, Monika R. Have a look and show us your interpretation.

Thanks for visiting. Come back again this week. I'm doing another series of Exploration STAMPlorations with the latest release stamps.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Karolyn L., who is on the DT over at The Cutting Edge Challenge, makes the most clever cards. There is one up to CASE this week in Challenge #2, that I loved when it first hit blogland - check it out here.

And there is an Ellen Hutson GC up for grabs and who doesn't love Ellen?

I had to give this challenge a go. And although I have a (NBUS) city skyline die, I opted not to use it. But die cut, I did.

Some splatters, some watercolors (made by sopping up leftover Distress Inks from my craft mat and therefore hooking up to the watercolor techniques challenge at AAA Cards), some staggered die cuts... it's a CASE. Gotta go.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

It's time to wish my STAMPlorations teamie, Kylie P. of Kylie is Addicted to Stamps, a very happy birthday. It's a pleasure working with you on the team. May all your hopes and wishes for the year come true.

I'm sure you know Kylie from the different challenges she organizes. Have you seen this in blogland?

She's also started a forum for stampers. See it here. Well I took that great graphic as inspiration for my card that's on its way to Australia.

And I used spray inks and the Masking with Die Cuts technique from the PTI Make it Monday #170. Love the extra punch you get with this easy technique. The party balloons and streamers are from the PTI Birthday Style set. The sentiments are from STAMPlorations Sentiment Builders: Celebrate.

Enjoy your day, Kylie! Celebrate big. And enjoy the linky party going on over at lovely Loll's blog, Stampin with Loll. See you over there, ya'll.

Judging by the number of birthdays in July, TV must be at its worst in October ;) Speaking of TV... Remember the show "Name that Tune"? Can you name that cardmaker in five words? - MIXED MEDIA ONE LAYER CARD

Need more clues? Videos accompanied by Mozart. Stamping Royalty 2014 Honorable Mention. She illustrates stamps. She's a ghostwriter. She owns a gazillion domains (what does that mean anyway?!?) She's self-proclaimed OCD, which is a really great thing cuz she's one crazy-organized leader for our DT and I totally love her for that!

My birthday wishes are stamped on a beautiful wine label sent to me by the lovely Jacqueline D. (the queen of wine label cards). I paired it with the Masking with Die Cuts technique from Make it Monday #170 using some PTI floral images. Hope you like it Shery!

As part of our little celebration for Shery, we of the STAMPlorations DT are sharing not only a card, but a bit of information about ourselves. Ready?

1. My favorite STAMPlorations stamp is Chevron and Arrows cuz I love the graphic images AND the size and font of the sentiments.

And strange but true, the first writing that came to my mind was not Hemingway, but this ... 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

I've had a thing about The Velveteen Rabbit for years. Started when I read those lines from it in some romantic novel back in the 80s. I was moved. I bought the book (illustrated by Michael Hague). Which started my collection of wonderfully illustrated children's books...

"Michael" literally became a part of our family. Michael went everywhere with us. Slept with DS who would rub his little tail while falling asleep. Had to get re-stuffed once or twice and have his tail repaired. Went on school outings, although he may have spent the entire time hidden in DS's backpack. Heck, he could have had his own free flight from so many frequent flier miles (in the cabin with us of course)!

Fast forward to 2014. Where is Michael today? I happen to know that he is tossed up into the darkest corner of DS's closet. Did you catch that? He is still in DS's closet. Yes, folks, I believe Michael has become real. (And I'm certain that somewhere in DS's oh-so-hard-for-me-to-understand innards, he knows what real love is.)

So, on to 3. Shery, you are amazingly talented! You are a gifted artist and businesswoman. You are an incredibly generous lady. You've got the energy of five people with hats in ten rings and you manage to keep them all running smoothly. It is truly a pleasure working with you. Here's wishing you health, happiness and success in the coming year and on your journey to becoming "Real-er".

Friday, July 4, 2014

New month. New challenge. And it's about glitter. To be honest my thoughts went to my young niece. To pink and purple and princesses and you get the picture. And this is my card.

Pink Copics at work here. Cake from the SKETCHED: Birthday Cake set. Bright pink frosting. Ms. Sunshine didn't help me catch in the photo the pink Stickles I added to each of the frosting tidbits on the cake. Here's the glitter in all its glory.

I used a banner die and stamp from Avery Elle and selectively inked the sentiment stamp with three colors to get "it's your day".

I've got a non-card project for you. I'm calling it "The family tree garland". It's a pun. It's the family tree. And it's a garland. Here's what I mean...

I used a PP pack, die cut stars, scored them and turned them into "barn stars". Added a B/W photo backed with a circle of burlap and then strung them on some baker's twine through eyelets.

The cool factor here is that this could be the start of a great tradition. In my garland, the first star is DS at Christmas 1996, then 1997, then DD Christmas 1998, then DS Christmas 1998 and so on. Add a star for each child in the family, each year, and you've got a great way to document the kids' growth and also a great home decor project for yourself or the grandparents.

Check out what the DT created (we're welcoming a few new creative ladies to the DT - yay!) and join us with your Christmas project. Then go have a cocktail by the pool ;)